Loving Ashe (18 page)

“What do you want to talk about?” She asked, walking up towards the door, her arms crossed in front of her. “Why don’t you just move on and live your life without ruining any more of mine?”

“We need to talk, Riley,” Gareth said. “Can you at least open the door and let me in so we can talk like two adults? It’s cold out here.”

“Then freeze. Or go back to your hotel where it’s warm,” Riley said. But Gareth only exhaled, hugged his arms around his chest and planted himself stubbornly outside the door.

“C’mon, Ri,” Gareth said, his voice softening. “We really need to talk. Truce?”

“We already tried that, Gareth, and we didn’t get anywhere but the front page of some gossip rag. Where is this going to end up? Do you have your photographers with telephoto lenses waiting outside? In a car maybe?”

“Riley, you’re overreacting,” Gareth said, rolling his eyes.

Now Riley was angry. How dare Gareth say she was over-reacting! No way was she letting him through the door now. He could freeze to death outside for all she cared.

“Over-reacting? You were already seeing Isobel when you kissed me and told me,
ooh, baby, you’re so real
, or whatever else you were lying about. You did that just to get back at Ashe, didn’t you? Well, I’m not falling for this ‘we’ve got to talk’ shit, alright? Just go, Gareth, and spare me the drama. I have enough drama right now.”

Gareth leaned against the window. “You’re not over-reacting. I’m sorry, alright? But we really need to talk – get a few things straight once and for all.” He winced as thunder rumbled overhead. “C’mon, Riley, I’m getting wet out here. Please? Just talk. We need to talk about us.”

“There is no us, Gareth. There hasn’t been any
us
since you put me on a plane back in LA three years ago and said you’d come back for me but you never did,” Riley said. “You can freeze your ass out there for all I care. Watch me.”

For the next ten minutes, Gareth stood outside, arms crossed in front of his chest, his shoulders hunched forward, waiting for her to open the door. He wasn’t giving up, not that Riley expected him to. He was dogged when he wanted to, which confused her. What did he want to talk about? And as much as she needed to put the books away, she couldn’t do it knowing someone was soaking wet from the rain as he stood beneath the awning, the wind whipping his hair about his face. Did she really want him to freeze to death? Of course Gareth wasn’t that stupid, but still – with Gareth, she’d given up figuring out why he did the things he did. What happened to his ever-present trucker hat anyway, she wondered as she took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Come in then,” she grumbled then lowered the blinds of the door completely as soon as she shut the door.   The last thing she needed was another photographer misconstruing their conversation for something else.

“And I’m not making you any espresso either,” Riley said as she walked past him to continue packing the books into the boxes. Gareth shrugged off his wet jacket and hung it from the coatrack next to the door, ruffling his wet hair and then stomping his boots on the doormat.

“What’s with all these books? Are you closing the place up?” he asked as he crouched in front of her, the books forming a barrier between them.

“No, but someone wrote an online review claiming they’d seen a rat in here, and we had to clean up the entire back area, including the food service counters and pastry shelves, but we’ve yet to find a single rat or mouse dropping. So Allen figured that maybe it came from the bookshelves,” Riley said, spreading her arms to her sides to indicate the shelves that were currently barren of books. “He decided that we’d better take everything down and wipe the shelves clean – maybe even get rid of them altogether.”

“If you do, you can’t really call it the Library Cafe anymore, can you?”

Riley shrugged. “Better than having rodents live in the books though, isn’t it?”

“Still, that’s a bit drastic, Ri,” Gareth said, frowning. “Did they leave their name? Those online reviews are usually linked to verified accounts – well, as verified as accounts can be verified, I guess. But still, what’s to stop some rival coffee shop from saying something that’s not true? I’m sure it’s not the first time it’s ever happened.”

“I didn’t check who left the review,” Riley said as Gareth pulled out his phone and logged onto the Internet. She’d been too freaked out to check, and she also got distracted over the news about Ashe being replaced by Gareth in the Conley Brennan film. Come to think of it, that was the real answer, for she never got around to check the online review site at all.

She was still stuffing books into the box in front of her when Gareth placed his hand over hers just as she was about to place a book titled
How to Survive Betrayal
inside a box.

“What?” Riley asked. At least Gareth wasn’t being romantic, she thought. She’d have to kick him back out into the rain if he was trying to do one of his moves again.

“I’m sure the review is a fake,” he said, showing her his phone. “Look, the person just registered their account today and left that review. They haven’t left any other reviews for other places at all.”

“So it’s not real, then? What if seeing a rat prompted them to get an account for the first time?” Riley asked, her shoulders slumping. She was relieved, but at the same time tired – exhausted, even. Why would anyone do such a thing?

“I doubt they’ve even been here,” Gareth said, frowning as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. “It could be some jealous girlfriend, who knows?”

Riley narrowed her eyes. “You better not be implying that it’s someone I know.”

He shrugged. “Or someone I know. Anyway, let me help you put all these back on the shelves, Ri. You don’t need to get rid of all these books because of one damn complaint over a non-existent rat.”

“What if there is – ”

“And even if there is one, it’s no reason to take all these books down. It’s like someone burning down the house over a spider, like those Internet memes go,” Gareth said.

“What’s a meme?”

“Never mind, Ri,” he said, crouching in front of one of the boxes and pulling out three books in one hand. “Let me help you put them back, please. You were never one to give up so easily anyway. Are these to be arranged alphabetically or just randomly?”

As Riley stared at him, she had to admit that Gareth had a point. Allen freaked out and now she was freaking out, and not thinking clearly. What if the review wasn’t real? Then they’d won, whoever they were.

“The Health Department is coming tomorrow,” Riley said, looking around at the boxes and books scattered around her. “I have to get all these books back on the shelves by then or they’ll think we do have a problem.”

“That’s my girl,” Gareth said, grinning. “Alphabetical by author?”

“No, just random. You know how it is, the fun of being here is discovering what’s on the shelves, especially when they’re in no fixed order,” Riley said.

They spent the next two hours putting everything back up on the shelves and arranging the armchairs, tables and chairs back to the way they’d been. Throughout that time, Riley and Gareth barely spoke. When they did talk, it was only to say something about whatever book they held in their hands, whether it was part of a series, as so many of them were now, or whether they’d read it or not. Gareth said he had very little time to read books these days, while Riley had read most of them. Sometimes Gareth simply watched her as she put the books away.

Riley wondered what had really brought him to the Library, but when she asked him he just told her to keep putting the books away so they’d be able to get out of there. What was it he wasn’t saying?

By the time it was all done, it was past eleven and Riley was hungry and tired, barely able to keep her eyes open. She would have loved to make herself a cup of coffee, but the last thing she wanted to do was get the counter area in need of another cleanup and then be wired up all night. No, she’d head home and heat a pot of ramen noodles. As they made for the front door, Riley stopped and turned to look at him.

“Are you happy?” she asked. Out of all the questions she could have asked him then, Riley had no idea why she picked that question. But there was something in his eyes that told her that his answer would be no, or at least an unconvincing yes. But then, maybe it was just wishful thinking on her part, wanting to see him miserable.

Gareth paused. He pursed his lips and arched an eyebrow, his eyes gazing downwards as he thought about it. He shrugged. “I honestly don’t know anymore.”

“How can you not know?”

He shrugged again. “I haven’t really thought about it. It’s not like I get to wonder about the mysteries of the universe these days, not like years ago when all you and I had was time – and ramen. Remember those days?”

Riley didn’t answer. Of course she remembered them. Why else did she suddenly want to heat up some ramen noodles at home? She hadn’t had ramen in years. Riley opened the door and they stepped outside, the crisp autumn air a welcome change from hours of being surrounded by the smell of books and coffee inside the cafe. It had stopped raining, although there was still a light drizzle.

“I came back for you, you know,” Gareth said as Riley locked the front door and slipped her keys into her jeans pocket.

“What?” Riley asked. He’d spoken so softly that she’d barely heard him.

“I came back for you seven months after I saw you in LA,” he continued. “Someone else was living in the apartment and you left no forwarding address, nothing. It made sense, though. I’d written you a few times and the letters were all returned, but since the return address I used was my PO box, I didn’t know about the returned mail till I got back to LA. I was filming
Hell’s Kingdom
then, so I was in England for seven months.”

As he spoke, he took a number of letters from inside his jacket pocket and handed them to her. “I was cleaning up my stuff a few days ago and I found these. You might as well have them, Ri. You don’t have to read them if you don’t want to, but I also don’t want to toss them, you know.”

“When did you come back for me?” Riley asked, staring at him.

“I just told you. Seven months after I made up that story that you were a crazy fan at that party,” Gareth replied. “Look, I got to thinking about what happened after we last talked, and I know I told you I didn’t remember, but now I do. I know I told Collette that you were some crazy fan, but I did that so I could get you out of that house. You were so high, you didn’t know which end was up. And look, I’m sorry it had to happen that way. I’m sorry that for seven months I never checked on you either, but I was just so scared of making a wrong move in my first ever real job.
Hell’s Kingdom
. But I really did come back for you.”

Riley remembered
Hell’s Kingdom
. It was a big-budget cable mini-series and Gareth’s first big break, the only one he needed. He’d only had a supporting role, but his performance was so good, it caught the attention of a major director who then asked him to audition for a lead role in what would turn out to be his breakout movie.

“I tried calling you, but our old number was already disconnected,” Gareth continued. “I even tried calling Paige but she wouldn’t even take my calls at all.”

“That’s because she hates you for what you did.”

Gareth’s face paled for a moment, but he took a deep breath and exhaled. “I even came here to the cafe, after I checked out the old apartment, but Allen told me you were gone. So I thought you’d quit and moved on somewhere.”

“I was in rehab upstate,” Riley said. “But did you really think I was going to wait for you all that time after what you did? Even if I had wanted to stay in that apartment, you gave me no choice, Gareth. You sent your assistants to clean the place up and left me with only a damn mattress!”

Gareth stared at her. “Wait, I did what?”

“You moved me out of the apartment,” Riley repeated. “I recognized one of the guys who came over. He was at that party in LA.”

“But why the hell would I do that?”

“Well, you did, Gareth,” Riley said, angry now. How dare he deny it?

As Riley walked away, not caring if it was drizzling, Gareth caught her arm, but she kept on walking. “Riley, what the hell are you talking about? I never sent any ‘assistants’ to clean up our apartment. You were still living there. I mean, why would I do that? Shit, I may be cold, but I’m not that cold.”

“Well, you did, Gareth. I wish you’d just stop playing this damn game,” Riley said, hurrying down the sidewalk, hoping a cab would drive by. The streets were slicked with rain and some cars were splashing water against the sidewalks, but she didn’t care.

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about, Ri.”

“Well, now you do, Gareth, so have a nice life. You came and you’ve said your piece, now say, ‘goodbye, Riley, and enjoy your life’,” she said angrily, raising her arm to hail a passing cab. As it stopped in front of her, she opened the car door but paused before getting in. “I have to admit, Gareth, the final insult was paying me all that money. I mean, was that all I was worth to you? Twenty thousand fucking dollars?”

She slipped inside the back seat and closed the door, but Gareth held it open.

“What money are you talking about?”

“Oh, Gareth,” Riley groaned, rolling her eyes. “Twenty thousand dollars in cash. I’m sure you don’t remember because you’re what – worth a few million now?”

“This is insane,” Gareth said, staring at her in shock. “I’ve done a lot of shitty things, Ri, but never anything like that, especially not to you. Twenty thousand! Where the hell would I have gotten that kind of money three years ago? I was so broke then even my manager had to loan me money just to buy new clothes and shit. I had to pay Collette back a hundred thousand on top of her commission.”

As he stood outside the taxicab, getting drenched for it began to rain again, Riley was grateful that Gareth hadn’t tried to get into the cab with her. She wouldn’t have known what to do, though the cab driver was shouting at him to close the door before his upholstery got wet. But as she told the driver her address, the sound of the rain drumming against the roof made her reconsider.